Excel Formatting

Formatting:

Excel has many ways to format and style a spreadsheet.

Why format and style your spreadsheet?

• Make it easier to read and understand

• Make it more delicate

Styling is about changing the looks of cells, such as changing colors, font, font
sizes, borders, number formats, and so on.

The most used styling functions are:

• Colors
• Fonts
• Borders
• Number formats
• Grids

There are two ways to access the styling commands in Excel:

1. The Ribbon

2. Formatting menu, by right clicking cells

 Excel Format Painter

The format painter is a command which lets you copy formatting from one cell
to another.

It is a great tool, which saves you lots of time!

The Format painter can be used to copy to single cells or ranges.

Format Painter is used by clicking on its button in the Ribbon, found in the
Clipboard group.

How to use the Format Painter:

1. Select the cell that you want to copy

2. Click the Format Painter button
3. Select a cell or range

Let's try some examples and copy formats with Colors and font Characteristics,
such as bold, italic and underline:
 Excel Format Colors

Colors are specified by selection or by using Hexadecimal and RGB codes.

Theme and standard colors:

The "More Colors" option allows you to select custom colors by entering a RGB
or HEX code.

Hexadecimal colors:

Excel supports Hexadecimal color values

A hexadecimal color is specified with: #RRGGBB.

RR (red), GG (green) and BB (blue) are hexadecimal integers between 00 and

FF specifying the intensity of the color.
For example, #0000FF is displayed as blue, because the blue component is set
to its highest value (FF) and the others are set to 00.

RGB Colors:

Excel supports RGB color values.

An RGB color value is specified with: rgb( RED , GREEN , BLUE ).

Each parameter defines the intensity of the color as an integer between 0 and
255.

For example, rgb(0,0,255) is rendered as blue, because the blue parameter is

set to its highest value (255) and the others are set to 0.
 Excel Format Fonts

You can format fonts in four different ways: color, font name, size and other
characteristics.

Font Color:

The default color for fonts is black.

Colors are applied to fonts by using the "Font color" function.

How to apply colors to fonts

1. Select cell
2. Select font color
3. Type text

The font color goes for both numbers and text.

The Font color command remembers the color used last time.

Font Name:

The default font in Excel is Calibri.

The font name can be changed for both numbers and text.

Why change the font name in Excel?

• Make the data easier to read

• Make the presentation more appealing

How to change the font name:

1. Select a range
2. Click the font name drop down menu
3. Select a font

Font Size:
To change the font size of the font, just click on the font size drop down menu:
Font Characteristics:

You can apply different characteristics to fonts such as:

• Bold
• Italic
• Underlined
• Strike though

The commands can be found below the font name drop down menu:

Excel Format Borders

Borders can be added and removed. Colors and style can be changed.

Why format borders?

• Make the document more readable and understandable

• Emphasizing key points

The Borders menu is accessed in the Ribbon, in the Font group.

Adding Borders:

Borders are added by clicking the Borders button.

The default border is black underline.

Changing the border type, style or color is a choice you make.

The option button next to the Border command gives options for more types of
borders.

Clicking the option button gives an overview of the different border options.

Border Colors:

Colored borders are added by selecting a color before adding the border.
The color can be changed in the Border Color menu:

Border Style:

Borders styles can be changed.

The menu is accessed in the Border Style menu.

Excel offers 6 different border styles:

• Solid line
• Dashed line
• Dotted line
• Medium line
• Thick line
• Double line
 Excel Number Formats

The default Number format is General.

Why change number formats?

• Make data explainable

• Prepare data for functions, so that Excel understands what kind of data
you are working with.

Examples of number formats:

• General
• Number
• Currency
• Time

Number formats can be changed by clicking the Number format dropdown,

accessed in the Ribbon, found in the Numbers group.

Excel Format Grids

By default, gridlines are displayed in Excel.

However, grids can be removed.

Why remove grids?

• Make the spreadsheet more readable

• Make the spreadsheet more delicate

How to remove grids

1. Click view in the Ribbon navigation bar

2. Uncheck gridlines
 Excel Regional Format Settings

Excel provides regional formatting settings for different languages and styles of
presenting information.

Regional settings affects a number of things, like:

• Calendar date formatting

• Decimal numbers
• Default currency formatting
• Formula delimiters

Formula delimiters are the symbols used to separate arguments in a function.

The most common symbols are comma , and semicolon ;

For example, the English regional language setting uses commas:

While German regional language settings uses semicolons: